Remembering A Girl
by Love Gordon
Summary: sequel to a dirge for daria... something supernatural...
1. Remembering A Girl

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**Remembering A Girl** by Love Gordon

Jane first saw her in the holiday rush outside Macy's. It was her freshman year at a small NYC visual arts college. The girl walked ahead, oblivious. Her brown hair swung against her green jacket. Black boots on her feet beat an even cadence on the side walk.

"Daria!" she cried out, running to catch her. But the girl had vanished into the crowd. She'd never have seen her if she'd been in Paris. However, Jane _wasn't_ in Paris, because she'd chosen to stay close to home after the death of the girl she'd just seen. If that wasn't Daria, it was a living doppelganger of the person, who had been dearest to her on this earth.

----

There were several more times – seven, she counted – but she could never catch up to the girl, never find her. Jane saw her twice at the subway station, once outside the library, even in a 7-11. The girl was elusive, enigmatic. She never saw her face. Oh, she _couldn't_ be Daria- but was there any other explanation? No one walked quite like Daria, had those scruffy Doc Martens that had been through a hurricane or two, and looked it.

----

It was the February of her senior year, a few days before the fourth anniversary of that terrible, terrible day. She saw the girl sitting at an outdoor table of her favorite café, the Leaky Teacup. Just twenty paces away, she sat, and even from behind Jane could seen the edges of a pair of black round-rimmed glasses. She ran to grab the chair next to her.

Throwing herself into that chair, she laid a hand on a green wool-covered arm.

"Gotcha!" she exclaimed, triumphant.

Daria smiled.

For a few long, long seconds, Jane simply drank in the image of her friend, who, she knew, would be gone sooner rather than later. It seemed decades had passed before Daria smirked again, laughed, and spoke.

"A true friend," and as the words died on her lips, she flickered, like a bad television. Raising a hand in wave, she continued to flicker, her solidity slipping away until she went out entirely. Jane was alone at the table.

But that was okay now.

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   [1]: fishing_for_a_story.htm
   [2]: boppee.htm
   [3]: moving_along.htm
   [4]: this_place.htm



	2. Himself, At Sea

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**Himself, At Sea** By Love Gordon

He sat on the edge of the pier. What was he going to do with his life? His father had set him up for a good career in the family investment business, but… somehow, it didn't feel right. Tom didn't know what to do. His life was so confused, so screwed up…

God, he needed her now. To tell him that he should do whatever he wanted, and to hell with his parents. But Daria was gone, and ever since he'd broken up with her, and she'd died, five years ago and some months, his life had been a mess. Maybe, he should just jump off the pier. The water looked tempting, it would swallow him up…

"Hey," said a voice Tom hadn't heard since… before Daria died, definitely. Probably even six, seven months before that.

"Jane?" he said incredulously. The girl he knew then was so different now. She looked light years older, though not _old_, just… wiser? Sage? He didn't know the word. Her hair hung loose around her face, and she wore a long red tunic over her usual shorts, tights, and boots.

"It's a good place to think, isn't it?" Jane said, dismissing the disbelief in his voice. She sat down next to him, dangling her feet over the water. "I used to come here a lot after Daria died. It was her favorite place to sit and read, after the library shut down."

"It was?" He hadn't known that.

"Yeah. She always came here. Sometimes I came with her, painting, or sketching, while she wrote. Towards the end, though, we just sat and stared at the sea…"

"How can you talk about it so calmly?" Tom asked, baffled. 

Jane laughed bitterly and looked him in the eye for the first time. "You think I'm calm? I'm on three kinds of medication, just trying to sleep at night."

"My mother and my sister have sent me to three psychiatrists in the past year. They keep telling me I have to let go. I have! What more do they want from me?"

She was silent. Then-

"Tom, I don't know. But you can't let her go."

"What are you talking about?"

Jane placed a hand over her heart. "She's still here, she's watching over us. She'll always be here," and she tapped her hand against her chest to indictate, "As long as we remember her."

"You're crazy," he said, getting up. "Want a ride?"

"In _that_ car?"

"Yup."

Jane sighed. "Okay. As long as the roof doesn't fall in."

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   [1]: remember.htm
   [2]: boppee.htm
   [3]: moving_along.htm
   [4]: this_place.htm



	3. Like You, Kind Of

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**Like You, Kind Of** by Love Gordon

She bopped her head to the music on the car stereo. Julie, who was her best friend, and hoped to be a pediatrician, laughed and settled back into the passenger seat. Quinn, who'd made a good start on her oncology degree, grinned and bopped some more. She found the particular CD in question under Daria's bed last week; it was the first time in nearly five years that she'd been in there. She'd dusted up a bit, and taken the CD-R for a spin; she was absolutely in love with by now.

"So, what's this song called? I feel like I've heard it somewhere." Julie asked.

"Oh, gawd, I don't know. I just found this CD-R under my sister's bed and stuck it in the stereo… it turned out to be pretty good," Quinn replied, turning left onto Guadalupe St. They both were privileged attendees on scholarship at an exclusive medical school on the coast of Florida, the Sundance College of Medical Studies, which had turned out some of the world's most prominent and skilled doctors. Quinn, with her 4.0 GPA in her senior year and but only a 3.5 GPA in her junior year, was accepted on probation, but after surviving her first year with another 4.0, Sundance's administrators decided to keep her. It was a very rigorous and academic institution, unlike Pepper Hill.

"You have a sister?"

"Yeah. She died when I was sixteen, though."

"And you didn't _tell_ me?"

"Well, it's… my last two years in Lawndale were pretty bad, Julie. Daria died, and then I got really involved in my schoolwork and pretty much lost all my friends… They weren't real friends, I guess. It's not something I like to remember."

"What was she like?"

"Like you, kind of, except _waaaay_ more cynical. She was a writer, really talented. I wish I could be as good of a person as she was."

Julie looked at her oddly. "Quinn, you're at Sundance to dedicate your life to helping people. You head the charity ball committee every fall, and you got that music producer boyfriend of yours to donate five hundred bucks this year. You're _the_ nicest person I know. How can you say you're not as 'good' as she was? What kind of person was _she_ if she wanted you to think that you're not 'good' enough?"

Quinn pulled into the driveway of the breezy bungalow that she, Julie, and another girl rented. Tossing her red hair, she turned off the car and removed the keys from the ignition. "It's not that she _wanted_ me to feel like that… but she was such a wholly good person. Aside from one time, I can't think of a time when she did anything that was harmful to anyone, other than the occasional snide joke. She always tried to think of other people. The time that she kissed her best friend's boyfriend, she was so upset. And that was the only time she ever… really did anything that she would regret. I think, maybe, she was like that because she knew what death felt like."

"What are you talking about?"

"She had leukemia. It went away, after a while, but she wasn't the same. Daria, as one of Mom's hippie friends once said, had an old soul. And I, like a fool, overcompensated and went totally the other way. I absorbed my self in shallow teenage boys 'n' fashion crap. When the leukemia came back, it went so fast, just two months after we found out, she was dead. It was a painful way to go, too. I never wanted it to be like that for her. For anyone."

"That's why you're going to be an oncologist?"

"Yeah."

# Note: oncology is the area of medicine dedicated to types of cancer

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   [1]: remember.htm
   [2]: fishing_for_a_story.htm
   [3]: moving_along.htm
   [4]: this_place.htm



	4. In Tune

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**In Tune** by Love Gordon

He sat the paper and pen on the table. No one was up this late. This was his last night alone in the old Lane house. Janey had moved out four years before when she and Tom married. Mom and Dad bought a second house in Costa Rica, which they shared with Penny. Most of Summer's kids were grown up now. Wind had been happily married to his tenth wife, Mariette, for seven years.

All his friends had grown up, moved along. Jesse and Monique had two kids, Nick's daughter was in high school, Max relocated to LA in '05 and hadn't been heard from since. The band dissolved even before Daria's death.

Daria. That's the reason he was sitting there at four in the morning. In eight hours, he was marrying the love of his life, who happened to be her sister. Somehow, he felt, this was the time for a final farewell. He'd never really moved beyond the impasse of her love, and, ultimately, her death. Quinn was the way out, but, somehow, he couldn't enter into their union of souls without bringing about a conclusion to the events that had brought them together.

Trent set his pen against the ivory paper.

_Somehow I couldn't forget you. No matter how much I love your sister, I always felt I was betraying you by letting go. But I understand now, that I've already let go. I'm moving on, changing, learning new things._

_It was not the true love that Quinn and I have; that much I know. But somehow, I always felt that you were in tune – intuitive?- to people. You were so in tune to me. You knew everyone as well as you knew yourself, maybe even better. You loved everyone; you were in love with everyone. Even the people you hated. Maybe you knew the cancer would come back. You were so vivid in your emotions, towards the end, I forgot that at first, it was always like you were holding your emotions back, because you didn't want to commit to anything. But you held in for the long run, even if your body didn't. I hope you know that people loved you, too._

_I did._

He didn't sign the note. Putting it in his pocket, he shrugged on a jacket, for the weather this February was surprisingly cold. He got into his car, and drove the few miles to the cemetery. As he placed the note in front of the gravestone, he took a good look at the stone for the first time.

_Daria Ann Morgendorffer_

_November 16, 1982 – February 13, 2001._

_Beloved daughter, sister, and friend. May she rest in peace._

_ _

He hadn't realized it, but he was getting married on the twelfth anniversary of her death. An end, and a new beginning.

As he drove away, a gust of wind picked up the note, blowing it up into the air.

To a higher place, up there in the sky?

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   [1]: remember.htm
   [2]: fishing_for_a_story.htm
   [3]: boppee.htm
   [4]: this_place.htm



	5. This Place

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**This Place** by Love Gordon

_Where she is, the room is dark and misty to the viewer, whomever that might be. She will be there until the end of time, waiting for her loved ones to come home to her. _

_Enter they will, this place where there is no pain, no emptiness. For this place is love, but what is that when you are a stranger in a strange place? She asked, at first. But the years have helped it grow on her. It is only lonesome because she is no longer with her friends, her family. She sends them her love, in different ways. She wishes that she knew they felt it._

_She is drawn to the window, and looking down she gasps in delight. It's finally happened! A little girl for her best friend._

_They will name her Daria, Tom says._

_She doesn't feel so worthless now, and she forces herself to remember:_

_For this place is love, and wherever she is, where her loved ones are, they will feel it, its gentle tug on the orbit of the world. They will see it, and where there is lack of it, in every face, in every flower. They will see it, and she will not be a stranger here. This is everyone's home, a mother's womb, a final resting place. And that which is without will be embraced and filled, when it is within._

_For this place is love, and it is Daria's world now._

_ _

**[1][1] [2][2] [3][3] [4][4] 5**

   [1]: remember.htm
   [2]: fishing_for_a_story.htm
   [3]: boppee.htm
   [4]: moving_along.htm



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